


Noisemaker

by catty_the_spy



Series: precog!verse [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Drug Use, Alternate Universe, Divorce, Drinking, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 09:10:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/583670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catty_the_spy/pseuds/catty_the_spy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how it begins, and how it ends, and how it begins again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noisemaker

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel to Soundwaves.

He remembered being a child, and dancing to a song no one else could hear. He remembered being cuddled to his mama’s breast and hearing her love pounded out in every beat of her heart. She would whisper to him about the humours, how every Jennings for hundreds of years had them, how she’d married into the McCoy’s partly because they had it in them as well – yes, Grandma McCoy could hear them, and Grandpa Jennings, too.  
  
She'd sit on the porch swing she loved so much and they'd whisper to each other. She'd help him sort through the muddled noises in his head - all kinds of different dings (rain, rain) and ticks (pregnant, pregnant), and thumps (love, love) - and it seemed like her warm hand against his forehead made the pain go away.  
  
"You're a special boy," she told him once, "from a long line of special people."  
  
"You're special, too," he'd said in a child's whisper, and she'd laughed.  
  
"Yeah I guess so." She'd kissed the top of his head. "But baby boy, the best kind of special is the one that don't brag, you understand? Not everyone is special like you and I; you can use what you've got to help them, but they won't understand. I want you to promise me you'll keep quiet about how special you are, okay?"  
  
"Like a secret?"  
  
"Exactly so. Promise me you'll keep it a secret."  
  
"I promise."  
  
As he'd grown, he heard less and less of those secret rhythms. The song he danced to became nothing but a memory, and he'd lost the ability to hear his mother's love. He never forgot the sound of it though, never forgot the feel of her arms around him and her wide palm against his forehead. Never forgot whispers in the dark, and those two little words. "I promise."  
  
  
  
He hated the sound of death. It always made him queasy; it was hard to hear over it, and he'd gotten many a hearing test and a hearing aid he'd never used out of it.  
  
It was easier with patients, strangers, people he didn't know very well. He had a good idea of whether his patients would die or not from the moment he met them.   
  
Death wasn't like other sounds that seemed to come from the air around him. Death came from inside. It tapped a low rattling rhythm in the bloodstream, and squeezed out through the pores. It was a sound so strong it might as well have been a smell - sweet and sticky, like food going bad.  
  
When he realized his father was going to die, it was before the long painful stretch that culminated with David McCoy in a hospital bed, begging for Leonard to end it. It was before any symptoms had started to show; it was the reason Leonard and his mother had pressured David to visit a doctor in the first place.  
  
Leonard couldn't push it aside like he could with his patients; the sound was strong enough to make him vomit several times over. It was worse for his mother.  
  
She'd told him once that the longer she'd been married to his father, the more she knew about him. "I know that he loves me tomorrow," she'd explained it once, "because I heard it. And I knew he loved me today because I heard it yesterday. And it's been the same thing pretty much all your life. We've been married a long time, Leonard."  
  
Some days she knew what her husband was going to say hours before it was said. She'd told Leonard once that she hoped one day he found a love like she had, that he could hear every morning and know would never leave.  
  
As she got sicker and sicker at the same pace as her husband, Leonard wondered if she still loved it as much as she had, if this pain was something he was supposed to look forward to.  
  
One day Leonard couldn't take it anymore. One day, he listened to his father pleading - " _Please, end it. Free me. The pain, the pain!_ " - and gave him what he asked for. He was going to die anyway; what did it matter if it were this day or any other day?  
  
Leonard ended up unconscious on the floor. He found out later that his mother had died moments after her husband. Her heart had stopped.  
  
  
Three weeks after that, they found a cure for his father's disease.  
  
  
  
Jim Kirk was reckless and crazy and a pain in Leonard's ass. Half the time they spent together involved booze. The other half usually had Jim showing up at Leonard's practice.  
  
Jim didn't care why Leonard had moved from his small town to Augusta. He only cared that Leonard was a good drinking partner and entertaining.  
  
"Assisted suicide?" he'd asked when Leonard had told him about what had happened to his father. "Cool. You think that's a good way to die?"  
  
Leonard thought Jim was an insensitive ass.  
  
"What, you think it was your fault?" Jim rolled his eyes and took another shot. They were both edging into dunk territory. "The man wanted to die, and from what you're telling me, he was pretty bad off. He was gonna kick it either way; at least he got to do it on his terms."  
  
"He could have lived. The cure-"  
  
" _Might_ have worked on him. There's also a chance it wouldn't have. There's no guarantee that it would do any good that late in the game. Either he dies from the disease, or he dies from leftover complications, or he spends however many years in a nursing home with a really shitty quality of life." Jim slapped a hand onto Leonard’s shoulder. "I'm sorry you lost your dad, but you didn't do anything worth beating yourself up over. You say you're mom was a cool lady. What would she have said?"  
  
Leonard knew what she would've have done. She would have put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. "Leonard Horatio McCoy, what the devil you think you're doing? He's a grown man; he can choose for himself." Or she would have grabbed him by the chin and said "You know better. Your daddy's a man as likes his dignity; it tears him up to be helpless."  
He knew what she'd say. She'd say "Baby boy, don't feel sorry for me."  
  
Leonard shrugged and frowned into his glass. "She'd a told me to do it."  
  
Jim nodded. "See? So what've you got to feel sorry for?"  
  
Leonard wished it were that simple.  
  
  
  
  
Leonard figured he and Jim stayed friends because Jim was a stubborn sunuvabitch. Jim was also able to hack into Leonard's door lock. How a man so intelligent could be such a dumbass was a mystery.   
  
"Bones!" he shouted, barging in uninvited as always. "You here?"  
  
Leonard had been in the middle of dinner with the very attractive Jocelyn Hart. She'd raised her eyebrows at him as he'd turned red and excused himself.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing here?" he hissed, barely resisting the urge to wring Jim's neck.  
  
Jim held up two bottles of whiskey. "I was in the neighborhood. I figured we could watch a movie. What?"  
  
"You can't be here, I have company."  
  
Jim leered. "Finally giving celibacy the what for? Who's the lucky lady?"  
  
"Will you get the fuck out?"   
  
"Who is it?" Jocelyn asked, still seated at the table.  
  
"Uh..."  
  
"James Kirk," Jim said, placing the whiskey on the table and holding out a hand. "Friend of the family. It's a pleasure to meet you."  
  
The immature brat had been replaced by a gentleman. Leonard was impressed.  
  
"Jocelyn Hart. Leonard and I were just having dinner."  
  
"A date? I'm so sorry to interrupt."  
  
Leonard watched with growing horror as Jim proceeded to flirt with Jocelyn over the dinner it had taken Leonard five hours to make. Eventually, after realizing he wasn't wanted, he took the whiskey to the kitchen.  
  
They ended up watching holos until midnight. Jim helped Leonard walk her to the door.  
  
"See you later, Heartbreaker," he said with a wink.  
  
"I hope so." Jocelyn glanced at Leonard. "I’ll call you."  
  
As soon as she was out of sight Leonard punched Jim in the shoulder. Then they finished off the whiskey.  
  
  
  
Leonard groaned and hunched over in his seat. "I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna puke..."  
  
"You're not gonna puke," Jim said lightly. "You are gonna have the perfect wedding, and then you and Heartbreaker are gonna have hundreds of little southern babies. It'll be awesome."  
  
"She has a name, you know."  
  
"Whatever, Bones."  
  
"And how many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?"  
  
Jim rolled his eyes. "Let's just get this over with. Come on."  
  
  
  
After Jocelyn Hart hanged her name to Jocelyn McCoy, they did _not_ have hundreds of little southern babies. They had one.  
  
Leonard knew Jocelyn was pregnant before it actually happened. He heard it in that sticky clicking noise every time she blinked. He knew before it showed up on any scan that the baby was a girl, and three days before Jocelyn went into labor he was ready, with time off work and a bag waiting in their car.  
  
"A girl? I knew it!" Jim crowed, immediately shushed by the attending nurse. "What are you gonna a name her?"  
  
"We agreed on Joanna."  
  
Jim raised an eyebrow. "Like in that thing about the murderer? ‘ _I feel you, Joanna_ ’? That's kinda creepy."  
  
"What? No. We liked the sound, and it didn't mean anything awful like 'ugly' or 'soup'."  
  
"What does it mean?"  
  
"God is gracious."  
  
"Huh." Jim nudged him. "Never took you for the religious type."  
  
"I'm not. Mother was."  
  
Jim hummed and they watched little Joanna sleep.  
  
After a moment, Jim started singing again. "’ _Do they think that walls can hide you? Even now I'm at your window._ ’"  
  
Leonard felt no remorse for clocking him.   
  
  
  
He spent a lot of time holding Joanna close to his heart, sitting in his grandma’s old rocking chair. He wondered if she could hear his love for her pounding in his chest. He hoped she could.  
  
  
  
  
Leonard was used to everyday sounds. He was always hearing something; the humours didn’t just go away. The sounds of disasters – of hurricanes, of earthquakes, of floods and fires – were something he could never get used to.   
  
Jocelyn was excited about the cruise, and by all rights Leonard should have been too. There was something about the boat, though, about the ocean, that made him uneasy – some sound he only half heard.  
  
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” he said.  
  
She rolled her eyes. “I thought you were just afraid of transporters.”  
  
“I have nothing against boats,” he snapped. “I just have something against _this boat_. I think we shouldn’t go.”  
  
“Nonsense. We already arranged time off.”  
  
“We could still transfer to a later-”  
  
Jocelyn grabbed his face in her two hands. “Leonard, for once in your life, try not to be a party-pooper.”  
  
“I don’t think you should go on that cruise,” Jim said later. “I’ve got a bad feeling about it.”  
  
“You and me both, kid.” Leonard sighed. “Jocelyn’s set on it, and it’s been a while since we’ve gone on vacation. Maybe we’re just paranoid?”  
  
“I’ve learned to trust my gut,” Jim said.   
  
Leonard almost told him about the humours, about everything, but he managed to hold his tongue just in time. Jim opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. “Just…be careful, Bones.”  
  
Joanna caught something not long before they were set to sail. Leonard latched on to the excuse and Jocelyn ended up going by herself.   
  
Leonard watched, with Joanna curled up in his arms, the live coverage of the hurricane. It broadcast in 25 languages in his area – more if he’d had the advanced viewing package. He learned the word for “super storm” in a variety of languages and sat by the comm., waiting for someone to call.  
  
Jocelyn, when she made it back, was angrier than she’d been when she’d left. They weren’t so close anymore.  
  
  
  
Hearing the end of the world was a unique experience. It didn’t even sound like doom at first, it was just danger, but it came from no specific direction. It went on like this for months. He was more irritable than usual. Joanna cried and clung to her parents. Jim was fidgety and distracted.   
  
He ended up having to up the dosage of his migraine medicine. And then, one day, it turned into DOOM, a loud, echoing drumbeat, and it came from the earth itself.   
  
Their planet was dying, earth was dying.  
  
Jocelyn was furious when she found him looking at off-world jobs.   
  
“I can’t believe you would even consider this without consulting me!”  
  
He tried to think of a convincing lie and failed. She spent the night at her daddy’s house.   
  
  
  
Leonard’s daddy told him “Son, when you go looking, try and find someone who’s got a touch with the humours.”   
  
His granny said “Jus’ make sure’n gimme granchillren.”  
  
His mama said “Find someone whose heart speaks to you, honey; someone you can tune to.”  
  
He never really tuned to Jocelyn. Maybe that’s why it started to fall apart.  
  
  
  
  
  
It ends like this:  
  
Someone at one of Jim’s “I swear it’s not a party Bones” parties slipped him a magic brownie – not one of the ones treated with marijuana that just made his ears pop, but one with one of the many designer drugs that didn’t agree with him. His night from brownie to torturous hour on the toilet was a blur. He must have done something last night; Jocelyn’s watching him with a light frown.  
  
Joanna’s already given him a feel better kiss and gone off to play. It’s just him and Jocelyn in the kitchen. He’s got a bad news headache, but he doesn’t think much of it. It usually means something’s gone wrong for one of his patients.  
  
Jocelyn refuses his offer to get her more coffee and takes her mug to the sink. When she comes back to the table, she sets a PADD in front of him. She looks out the window while he puts down his cup and starts to read.  
  
“Joint custody,” she says when he stands, refusing to look at him.   
  
  
It ends with him trying to think about it logically:  
  
She isn’t happy – he’s making her unhappy, with all of the things he can’t say, with all of the things she doesn’t know and he’s too afraid to tell her.   
  
He remembers in stark relief the day he began to understand just how unusual he was. He remembers the whispers of his classmates, and spending half a day in the nurse’s office while a man he’d never met asked question after question.  
  
He’d heard whispers of hospitalization and medication. The young Andorian in the white coat had faked a smile and told him that the doctor had just a few more questions, and would you answer as honestly as you can, it’s only until your parents get here.  
  
He remembers ten children dying and the doctors turning into policemen.  
  
He’s not a child anymore, but he remembers what had come of that tearful confession in the principal’s office, “Something bad is going to happen to the bus.”  
  
  
It ends with Jocelyn giving him a PADD and him giving her a signature.  
  
  
  
Three weeks later, Jim introduces him to Christopher Pike, who gives him a long speech that basically says “There are people out there who can hear the future, and Jim and I are two of them, and we are not crazy.”  
  
It’s not all that funny, but Leonard laughs himself sick.

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on LJ and crossposted to Dreamwidth.


End file.
